


third time's the charm

by cacowhistle



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study, No Beta We Die Like Wilbur in Skyblockle, fundy was like "yeah i have like 13k gunpowder" and i was like "hey what the actual fuck", kind of, thats fucked up, thats like 40 stacks of tnt, thats like. 200 stacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-12 22:13:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28517712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cacowhistle/pseuds/cacowhistle
Summary: L’manburg died the moment Wilbur did, he realizes. Maybe it died before that, even. Maybe it died when he was exiled, when it was founded, when it set down borders and used the word nation to describe it. As soon as Wilbur put himself in charge, L’manburg was doomed. It was always doomed. Fundy is a passenger on a sinking ship, with no way out.Maybe, he thinks, staring at the bloodstained floor, I can make it sink faster.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 59





	third time's the charm

Fundy would not say he’s a violent person.

Mischievous is a better word for it! He likes the harmless kind of trickery, pranks that can be laughed at afterwards. Things like scams and jokes and lighthearted bantering. Bickering and competitions, nothing too serious. He likes all the softer parts of life, and he likes making people laugh. That, at least, is something he is good at. That, at least, is an accomplishment.

But here, sitting in the old, previously sealed off button room, staring at the bloodstain on the floor and haunted by his father’s voice, humming the anthem…

The legacy he left for his son was… terrible. Fundy is not proud of who his father was. He hates him and loves him all in the same breath, despises him for what he did and desperately wants his affections. The ghost that haunts these streets is not the same man, he’s said it himself, and Fundy will not go crawling to him for a faux father’s love.

Fundy’s hands curl into fists. The room smells faintly of gunpowder, but reeks more of death, all these months later.

He doesn’t like the deadly kind of violence. He didn’t like going after Technoblade, even though the pig deserved it. He didn’t like the wars, the fighting, he doesn’t like the uneasy tension that has settled like a weighted blanket across L’manburg, stifling and restricting its citizens and president. He doesn’t like Quackity much anymore, who is all fire and blood and blazing, a furious glint forever in his eyes.

This city, this entire nation… is a shell of its former self.

L’manburg died the moment Wilbur did, he realizes. Maybe it died before that, even. Maybe it died when he was exiled, when it was _founded,_ when it set down borders and used the word _nation_ to describe it. As soon as Wilbur put himself in charge, L’manburg was doomed. It was always doomed. Fundy is a passenger on a sinking ship, with no way out.

_Maybe,_ he thinks, staring at the bloodstained floor, _I can make it sink faster._

* * *

He does not tell anyone his plan, except for the near-transparent ghost that lingers in his doorway that night. Wilbur is all but gone, tonight, more bad memories than good at the sight of gunpowder staining his son’s hands. Fundy wants to say a lot of things. He wants to yell at his father. He wants to demand fair treatment, wants to shriek and scream and shove Wilbur away. He wants to beg for his affection, for forgiveness, wants to forgive him in turn.

He tapes up the crate of dynamite wordlessly, jaw wired shut by his own awful mind. Wilbur hovers in the doorway, wearing a dusty old coat, blood staining his sweater.

Fundy breathes in the smell of gunpowder, and smiles.

“Is this what you wanted?” He wants to laugh, or maybe start wailing. “A proper send-off for your great unfinished symphony.”

Wilbur doesn’t speak a word.

* * *

There was a time before, when Fundy would have curled up by his father’s side, eager for a story or a song. He would bury his face in his father’s sweater and drift off to sleep, comforted by Wilbur’s presence. Eventually, that comfort turned to unease and then disdain, as their family fell apart and their country fell to ruin. As Fundy was tugged back and forth between two different monsters, dictators in entirely different forms, two father figures who only wanted the worst for him.

Fundy remembers sleeping in Wilbur’s lap. Listening to him sing into the night, the strum of his guitar and the sweet sing-song tones of Eden in his voice. Eden, the beautiful and brilliant world the both of them came from, the world that Fundy does not remember and the one that Wilbur seems to want to forget.

There is magic in their veins, displayed in every aspect of the little fox boy that makes up Fundy, displayed in the feathers adorning Wilbur’s back and arms and legs, the slitted pupils and sweet sirensong singing that he can pull out of thin air. They are not of this world, and at the very least they’ve found each other, brought each other comfort. They have helped each other realize they are more than their strangeness.

But with Wilbur gone, there is nobody to stand by Fundy’s side, nobody there to assure him he is more than the monster and the magic in his veins.

People called Wilbur a monster, in the end.

Fundy grins, baring his teeth. His eyes are golden and gilded in the sun.

_Like father, like son,_ that is how the saying goes.

* * *

There is no-one there to stop him, in the end.

Fundy sits in that very same room for hours. An entire day, almost, staring at the button he’s replaced. He’s done his father proud, he knows, twice as much redstone, twice as much TNT, he has rigged the entire place and then some. The explosions will be heard all the way out from Pogtopia’s old base, will be heard from the furthest reaches of the Dream SMP. If things go to plan, no-one will be left to remember the bones of this civilization.

He wants to press the button. He doesn’t know how Wilbur didn’t, for so long.

“Your L’manburg,” he mutters bitterly, pacing across the room. His tail swishes anxiously, his ears flat against his skull as he rambles and raves into empty air. “ _Your_ unfinished symphony, always yours, always about you, _everything_ is about you, isn’t it?”

Fundy falls back into the chair with a broken little laugh, dragging his hands down his face. “I’m going to fucking do it, I’m gonna do what you couldn’t do, I’m gonna stomp out the fucking flame and just--just--”

He chokes on a sob, takes a shuddering, gasping breath, leans forward as he does his best to hold it in. He can’t do it. He wants to do it. He wants this all to end, this fucking nightmare of a life he lives. History repeats and repeats and repeats, and Fundy wants nothing to do with any of it anymore. No matter where he goes, where he runs to, he always gets dragged back. L’manburg has him imprisoned, forever trapped by his father’s fucking legacy.

A hand hovers over the button. Fundy desperately wants to press it.

Ice cold hands rest themselves gently on his shoulders. Fundy falls back into his father’s ghostly embrace with a shuddering wail, curls into the hug with whimpering sobs.

_“Let’s go,”_ Wilbur whispers. Fundy does not have it in him to argue.

(Tubbo stares at the note Wilbur left for him. Exhausted resignation to an afternoon of derigging TNT should not be the normal reaction, and yet.)

There is a little cottage up north, being expanded as we speak. A little family of four makes it their home, a ragtag group of rude, powerful, and deeply loyal people, a group that will not be torn apart. And while our little fifth has done them wrong, and has been done wrong by them in return, there is still a spot by the fire for him.

There is still a place to call home, even if only for a little while.

Technoblade is displeased when Wilbur shows up with Fundy. Phil is unenthusiastic, but far more lenient. Tommy is wary.

But they give him a chance.

And that, really, is the only thing he needs.

**Author's Note:**

> felt like scribbling out smth short and sweet that doesnt actually connect to my main series, consider this an alternate timeline in the ad astra per aspera series lmao.
> 
> follow me on tumblr @cacowhistle for updates on my bigger series! i'm also on twitter, twitch, and youtube under the same names, although i don't post to twitter (for now). i'm on to much bigger and better things this year, as far as content goes :>
> 
> thanks for reading!


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